FEATURE
FEATURED FARMER JAMES ALEXANDER
CONTRACTOR, LITCHFIELD FARM, ENSTONE, OXFORDSHIRE Farm Facts FARM SIZE: 1500 acres (800 farmed organically, 700 conventionally) MANPOWER: 2.5 - 3.5 FARM TYPE: Arable with flying stock (lambing here) TENURE: Contract farming REGION: South East England SOIL: Cotswold Brash APPROACH: Organic & conventional KEY FARMING PRACTICES: Undersowing, Diverse leys, Cover crops, Direct drilling, Diversified rotation, Leys Litchfield farm near Enstone in Oxfordshire (owned by Nicola and Kevin Knott) is one of four farms I contract farm (of a total of 1,500 acres, this one is 800 acres). Litchfield is an organic arable farm while the others are ‘conventional.’ In general the rotation is a 2-year ley, spring beans, spring / winter wheat, spring barley, and oats. (In a conventional rotation we generally have a 2-year ley, winter wheat, spring barley, and oilseed rape.) I’ve learnt a lot from farming organically that I’ve taken into the conventional and vice versa. I have the benefit of both worlds - I can do both and see what works! The conventional farms are all direct drilled - wherever we can we direct drill. The organic Litchfield farm is the complete opposite - we plough, cultivate, and drill. I am focused on trying to find a way to reduce cultivations and direct drill, looking after the soil health and managing weeds as best I can. I’ve been involved in an Innovative Farmers field lab looking at alternative method for terminating cover crops which you can find out more about from the link * below. Various cover crop trials I have been carrying out have led on from this field lab; I have been experimenting with mustard and oil radish (see below), beans, oats, peas, vetch and rye.
& Charlotte Clarke set up an organic flock and they’re lambing them here - they’ll go on the leys and cover crops). We saw the benefits in 2018 when we grazed 90 acres of cover crops on arable fields which meant we could min till the fields rather than plough them. I grew some of the best oats I’ve ever grown - can’t say it’s all to do with the sheep and cover crops but I’m sure it had a big impact. We have about 180 acres of clover leys in the rotation every year. Fattening lambs on clover is brilliant - it gives us an easy way of grazing the lambs but then we also have the option if we are putting winter cover crops down, to graze them with sheep - and if it means we can min till instead of ploughing, all the better! Blackgrass is worse in some years than others - it depends on the rotation and the fertility we have in the soil. We sheep, top, sheep, and top leys and leave as a mulch, the aiming being to turn clover leys without ploughing. In addition to the farming I also manufacture and sell no-till drilling equipment.
Sustainability in practice: Using a roller crimper to improve weed management and soil health I am very keen to reduce tillage in the organic system having seen the benefits in the conventional system, so I direct drill where I can. Cover crops are an essential part of that system but I need to find a way to control them without using glyphosate. I have therefore been developing a UK-focused roller crimper which essentially breaks the stems of the cover crop when it's going to seed (it’s weakest point) and then can kill it. This is a key part of the conventional farms but in the last few years I've been experimenting with how I can make it work on the organic farm. Two years ago I tried rye and vetch and found that it was quite challenging to kill the vetch - it took multiple passes, but I am hoping to develop this system...
We had been stockless for about 11 years but now have 125 breeding ewes which are permanent and being lambed so we can start having our own flock of sheep on the farm (Sam
See the scrolling images above to view a field of vetch at various stages of crimping.
Clover
Clover crop with mustard
6 DIRECT DRILLER MAGAZINE
ISSUE 10 | JULY 2020
